374 
Technical Training of Stockmen. 
of an animal must be such as to ensure not only warmth, but ease 
and quiet. Tell the cowman the cause of milk fever, describe the 
kind of treatment producing it, point out the remedies, or rather 
the preventatives, the actual necessity of freedom from excitement, 
&c. Explain to him the results of feeding on various kinds of food, 
so that he may be cautious not to produce either fever or purging, 
from food and roots ill-prepared and injudiciously mixed. 
In the case of sheep and shepherding there is very much to learn. 
In my own district in the East of England this shepherding business is 
highly important. We want men with better instruction. I am firmly 
of opinion that a great percentage of our losses might be avoided if 
more care, combined with greater technical knowledge, could be 
insured. After a life-study of this branch of farming, my experi- 
ence is that, although I yearly learn something new, there is yet a 
great need of more information. Let some qualified man lecture to 
us about the common ailments of the sheep ; let him dissect an 
animal suffering from disease in our presence. In this way I have 
learnt more from my veterinary surgeon than from most other 
sources. On our flock farms we invariably experience some fatal 
sickness just before the lambing season begins. Sometimes our 
sheep are found dead in the morning, apparently having died in 
their sleep. Another season we find the first symptoms are dizzi- 
ness, foaming at the mouth, itc. Another year something causes 
abortion ; this year, for instance, it was the young sheep of the 
flock that suffered in this way, whilst the older animals lambed in 
due course. Yet another season they die from inflammation and 
straining after lambing, and at other times from garget. 
I notice, however, that we seldom suffer, to any great extent, 
from two of these complaints in one and the same season, though it 
is rare for any one farmer to suffer alone. All in the district expei’i- 
ence more or less the same complaint, doubtless due to the same 
cause. Our uncertain climate and the varied state of winter food, 
the perhaps unripe, or it may be quite r ipe and frost-rotted turnips, 
the different ingredients contained in the same roots when in dif- 
ferent stages of growth or decomposition, may, in a great measure, 
account for this. Nevertheless, here is a wide field of observation, 
when those who have the opportunity are taught to observe. 
Shepherds should be brought to recognise the necessity of 
cleanliness. How often is blood-poisoning, for example, contracted 
through neglect of this ! I can look back upon scores of cases — 
fatal cases — that, had I known what any shepherd ought to know 
and could be taught^ would never have been a source of trouble and 
loss. Let our shepherds have explained to them that blood poisoning 
may arise from decaying or decayed vegetable or animal matter, 
which is easily taken up and is in its nature deadly and contagious, 
AVe should then hear far less of straining after lambing, or of the 
nostrums warranted to cure it, but which so seldom have the desired 
effect. Explain, further, the cause of blowing and garget, and how 
to avoid these ailments. 
Let shepherds be instructed, also, how best and most humanely 
